One of the most difficult challenges facing our faculty is responding to the BOT's request to require promotion to associate professor in order to get tenure. This request has provoked controversy since it was communicated to Senate in fall 0f 2009 by Interim Provost Kathy Walsh.
According to the Task Force chairs, the Task Force engaged extensively on this issue during their year-long research. They discussed it extensively in the first part of their work, and during fall, when they were writing the policy, they talked with many faculty members. According to what the Task Force reported, most faculty they talked to over a period of months accepted the notion of requiring promotion to associate as a requirement for tenure. Therefore, they included it in the policy. Here is a comment from recent email traffic.
[T]hose we interviewed and talked with throughout multiple venues seemed to be fine with the requirement that someone be promoted before tenured, even if this were to occur within the same year. Therefore, the Task Force moved forward on this, making promotion a prerequisite to tenure since the BOT has said they don't understand the justification for why someone is worthy of tenure who had not met the criteria for promotion. This was possible in the past, I think, because the criteria for promotion to associate in the old policy were higher then than that for tenure. This is no longer the case.
Many faculty have wanted to know the reasoning behind the BOT position. Basically, they view tenure as a significant investment in an individual. To them, to merit this level of investment, the candidate needs to demonstrate continual professional growth and achievement. They believe that earning a promotion is an indicator that the candidate has the follow-through and commitment to merit this lifetime guarantee.
The Board of Trustee members also believe that most colleges and universities link tenure and promotion in some way, and that NLU is out of alignment with a fairly standard practice in higher education. As you know, faculty have received conflicting reports about about practices throughout higher education. In a recent email, the chair of the Task Force, Sue McMahon wrote:
Many others of us have also done the research and found that our practice is rare, if not nonexistent elsewhere. Further, the situation that resulted in assistant professors becoming tenured to NLU in the past was not because the policy explicitly supported such a decision. In contrast, the policy was so poorly written that the criteria for becoming an associate professor were higher than for earning tenure. This was genuinely problematic and one issue the Task Force worked hard to address because it created misunderstanding for faculty, P&T committees, administration, and the BOT.
At this point, we are better off avoiding an argument among ourselves on these nuances, and instead seek the best possible P&T Policy we can.
Many faculty have asked me whether we have tried to push back or negotiate on this. I have to report that when I tried, I received the strongest resistance I can recall in any kind of negotiation. One administrator told me that the BOT is "adamant" on this issue.
I don't think that faculty are of one mind on this issue. Obviously, some faculty feel very passionately about this subject, but the TF research over a long period of time showed that many faculty agree with this requirement, which is why they created the policy the way they did.
Senate will carefully consider all feedback from faculty as we finalize this policy and work to obtain the best policy we can.
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